South African lawyers to seek arrest of federal agents involved in unprecedented US torture case

Johannesburg – Lawyers in South Africa have applied to be informed should the suspects in the Ali al-Marri case enter the country, so they can apply for their arrest and a full investigation can be done into their role in torturing al-Marri on US soil.

Yesterday, CAGE released 35 000 pages of documents providing evidence to support their that their client Ali al-Marri‘s claims that he was forced into pleading guilty to involvement in 9/11, after 13 years of detention and torture at the Charleston Naval Brig in the United States.

Al-Marri, a Qatari businessman, insists he is innocent of terrorism and would never want to harm the American people. Rather, CAGE have published evidence to suggest that he is the survivor of interrogation methods that mirrored those of Guantanamo Bay.

The CAGE report and documentation is unprecedented in that it names members of the FBI and the Department of Defense who allegedly participated in torture on US soil. In 2014, the US released a Senate Report on Torture implicating the CIA, but very few alleged perpetrators were named.

Al-Marri and his lawyers are seeking the arrest in particular of Ali Soufan, an ex-federal agent and CEO of a security consultancy which provides counter-terrorism services to a number of governments around the world.

Feroze Boda SC and a spokesperson for CAGE Africa, a branch of CAGE UK, said:

“The release of this amount of evidence is an unprecedented move, not only because it highlights the alleged perpetrators, but also because these crimes took place on US soil, and not in the black hole of Guantanamo Bay. As such, it is a major step towards securing accountability for those who abuse in the name of the ‘War on Terror’.

“The fact that al-Marri insists he was forced into a guilty plea by years of incarceration and abuse must cause us to question the context in which many so-called ‘terrorism convictions’ are secured.”

“The South African authorities are compelled by their membership of the United Nations, to arrest and investigate any individual likely to have been involved in torture, which is a crime against humanity. Should the individuals named in the CAGE Report ‘Torture in America’ visit South Africa at any point, we have requested the Department of International Relations and Communications, Interpol and the South African Police Service to immediately move to arrest them in line with international law.”

(NOTE: CAGE represents cases of individuals based on the remit of our work. Supporting a case does not mean we agree with the views or actions of the individual. Content published on CAGE may not reflect the official position of our organisation.)

About

CAGE is an independent advocacy organisation working to empower communities impacted by the War on Terror. The organisation highlights and campaigns against state policies, developed as part of the War on Terror, striving for a world free from oppression and injustice.